Grade 9 +. A 30 year old goalkeeper from Brazil whose team has just won the World Cup in soccer is interviewed by a reporter and tells the tale of how he became a world class player. The story takes us into the heart of the rain forest where logging is changing the shape of the landscape. The boy's father is a logger, and for awhile, the boy joins his father in that enterprise. The boy learns soccer from a ghost caught between the living and the dead. The reporter speaks for the reader when he questions the keeper's fantastic story about being trained by a ghost... but in the end the reader wants to accept the story. Afterall, there is always mystery attached to the question of how some triumph in the face of adversity while others fail.
Grade 8+